Optical transmitters employ laser drivers to drive solid state laser diodes for optical transmission of data over fiber optic lines. These devices are capable of high data rates and, accordingly, are finding ever increasing application in data communications. Solid state lasers, however, have various characteristics that must be accounted for in such applications. One such characteristic is that, at least for high data rates, solid state lasers are not operated between on and off conditions because of the time it takes for the laser, when fully off, to get back into a lasing condition. Accordingly, for high data rates, such lasers are commonly operated between a high optical power level as one data state and a much lower power level for the second data state. For purposes of discussion herein, it is assumed that the high optical power level will represent a logic “1” and the low optical power level will represent a logic “0.” The ratio of optical power levels, P.sub.1 for the high optical power level and P.sub.0 for the low optical power level, is referred to as the extinction ratio (P.sub.1/P.sub.0). Normally, the user of the laser driver, i.e., the manufacturer of the optical transmitter, desires to set and control the extinction ratio and the average power. Optical transmitters also typically include a monitor photodiode (MPD) which receives a part of the light emitted by the transmitting laser diode to provide a measure of the optical power levels of the transmitting laser diode. However, such monitor diodes and their associated circuitry do not have the high frequency capabilities of the transmitting diode and, accordingly, have real limitations with respect to what the monitor diode can accomplish.